DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Status of Claims
Claims 1-5 are pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5 and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 2A, Prong One: The independent claim 4 recites “generating an input sequence with constraint information based on the input sequence and constraint information; generating output information by inputting the input sequence with constraint information to a sequence conversion model; and generating the output sequence by performing a constrained search using the output information such that the output sequence includes the constraint information”.
The limitation of “generating…”, “generating…” and “generating” is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers a human organizing of activities. More specifically, a person obtains a document in first language and translates to second language by searching information.
Accordingly, the claims are directed to the judicial exception of a mental process.
Step 2A, Prong Two: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The computer is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as performing a generic computer function and being used as an applying) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer. Accordingly, there additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B — Claims Do Not Recite an Inventive Concept That Transforms the Mental Process into Patent-Eligible Subject Matter
The claims add generic, well-understood computer components (memory, processor, and computer) and broadly recite use of “sequence conversion model” without describing any specific, unconventional structure, algorithmic detail, data structure, or system architecture that provides a concrete technical improvement in computer functionality.
Applying Alice step two and relevant Federal Circuit precedent:
The recitation of conventional computer components (memory and processor) performing routine functions does not supply an inventive concept.
The mere invocation of “sequence conversion model” without particularity does not demonstrate an unconventional machine or technique or a specific improvement in computer technology.
The claims recite high-level, result-oriented steps (e.g., “generate”) that describe mental processes rather than specific technical means for performing those processes.
Because the claims lack limitations that tie the mental-process steps to a particular way of achieving a technological improvement (for example, a novel model architecture, specialized data representation, unique training regimen that yields demonstrable technical performance gains, a specialized streaming/decoding pipeline that reduces latency by a quantifiable amount, or hardware/software co-design), the additional elements do not transform the mental processes into significantly more.
Therefore, claims 1, 4 and 5 fail to recite an inventive concept sufficient to transform the judicial exception into patent-eligible subject matter.
With respect to dependent claims 2-3, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
D. Conclusion — Rejection
Claims 1-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a judicial exception (mental processes) and failing to recite additional elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-5 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Yun et al., (US Pub. 2023/0290360, priority date: Jan. 6, 2022) in view of Emelyanenko et al., (US Pub. 2023/0177282).
Regarding claim 1, Yun discloses a generation apparatus for generating an output sequence from an input sequence, the input sequence being a sequence of information, and the output sequence being a sequence of another piece of information, the generation apparatus comprising:
a processor: and a memory storing instructions that cause the processor to execute a process, the process including:
generating an input sequence with constraint information based on the input sequence and constraint information (Fig. 7, S710-S730, [0036]-[0041][0067]-[0069] receiving voice input, determining whether previous utterance exist and extracting context vector from previous utterance; context vector is indicative of “constraint information”);
generating output information by inputting the input sequence with constraint information to a sequence conversion model (Figs. 1 and 7, S740, [0036]-[0040][0070] inputting voice input and previous input to multilingual embedding language model 410 and generating the encoded input voice signal);
generating the output sequence by [performing a constrained search using the output information] such that the output sequence includes the constraint information (Figs. 4 and 7, S750, [0049]-[0051][0071] generating interpretation result using context vector and encoded voice signal which may use an attention map).
Yun does not explicitly teach however Emelyanenko does explicitly teach including the bracketed limitation:
generating the output sequence by [performing a constrained search using the output information] (Emelyanenko, Figs. 2 and 9, [0017]-[0020][0032]-[0035] generating the sequence of output tokens by performing a constrained beam search).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the method of context-based translating as taught by Yun with the method of performing domain-specific translation of sentences by performing a constrained beam search as taught by to provide translation models in order to better domain-specific translation of sentences (Emelyanenko, [0007]).
Regarding claim 2, Yun in view of Emelyanenko discloses the generation apparatus according to claim 1,and Yun further discloses: wherein the process further comprises:
Correcting the output sequence obtained by the search unit such that the constraint information matches by searching the output sequence (Fig. 3, [0022][0028][0042], claim 14, “the context prediction model performs domain text-based fine tuning on a basic multilingual embedding model composed of general text when an interpretation target domain is a special or restricted domain”).
Regarding claim 3, Yun in view of Emelyanenko discloses the generation apparatus according to claim 2,and Yun further discloses: wherein the process further comprises:
Wherein the correcting includes replacing a matched part with original control information that is not processed when the constraint information matches the output sequence from the search unit after normalization on at least one of the output sequences and the constraint information is performed (Figs 3 and 4, [0049][0050] [Table 1] replacing a matched part with fine tuning which may interpret with a special or restricted domain”).
Regarding claims 4 and 5, Claims 4 and 5 are the corresponding method and medium claims to system claim 1. Therefore, claims 4 and 5 are rejected using the same rationale as applied to claim 1 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please see attached form PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEONG-AH A. SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-5933. The examiner can normally be reached 9 AM-3PM.
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Seong-ah A. Shin
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2659
/SEONG-AH A SHIN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2659